CONTEMPORARY REALISTIC FICTION: ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE

 CONTEMPORARY REALISTIC FICTION: ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Saenz, Benjamin Alire. 2012.  ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE. New York, NY. Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers. ISBN: 9781442408937

2. PLOT SUMMARY 

In this coming-of-age story of love, loyalty, and identity, two polar-opposite fifteen-year-old boys, Aristotle Mendoza and Dante Quintana, meet each other in the summer of 1987 in El Paso, Texas, and develop an inseparable friendship. While Ari is angry, quiet, and brooding, Dante is intellectual, genuine, and warm. Even in their differences, both teens are natural loners, and each are discovering new parts of themselves in the developing relationship they create. Through their friendship, they learn important truths about each other as their bond strengthens, facing powerful personal struggles related to the confusion, angst, and loneliness often found in the teenage years. Additionally, they learn what race, love, loyalty, sexuality. and identity mean to them. Challenges come their way and threaten to tear them apart, but Ari and Dante discover, together, what the secrets of the universe are, and the power of unbreakable friendship.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS 

Ari and Dante are the main characters of ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE. While vastly different in personalities, their internal beliefs, struggles, and emotional growth all speak truth to the uncertainty, confusion and angst that many teens experience in their teen years, and can provide comfort to many readers. Aristotle, the main character, opens up to the readers not only his dialogue with others, but also his inner dialogue with himself, revealing how he feels about himself and events out of his control. Both dialogues are critically important to helping the reader to discover who Ari is, and to understand how he sees the world around him, and his place in it. The language that Ari and Dante use are typical of teenage boys, but present different ways that they verbalize their internal journeys and emotional growth. Ari is bitter, angsty, angry, and feels things and circumstances at a deep and emotional level. His internal dialogue especially is a powerful indication of his frame of mind and emotional growth, gaining strength over the course of the novel. Dante, while personable and open, and seemingly confident and in touch with himself, is still sometimes scared of the uncertainties of life. Together, Ari and Dante’s powerful bond strengthens and encourages the other, and brings healing to them both. 

Even with all of these powerful emotions coming into play in ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE,  both Ari and Dante can be relatable characters for both teen and adult readers, in their journey to understand the life and the world around them, and the parts they play in it, as well as coming to terms with themselves and their core beliefs, and identity. 

Through the telescope, the world was closer and larger than I’d ever imagined. And it was all so beautiful and overwhelming and - I don’t know- it made me aware that there was something inside me that mattered. As Dante was watching me search the sky through the lens of a telescope, he whispered, “Someday, I'm going to discover all the secrets of the universe.” 

That made me smile. ‘What are you going to do with all of those secrets, Dante?’

 “I’ll know what to do with them,” he said. “Maybe change the world.”
I believed him.

Saenz creates a story about Ari and Dante that is lifelike, engaging, and plausible for Ari and Dante’s story. While set in a time period young readers may not know much about, events are familiar and can mirror true life. Ari’s journey and struggles are  not easily wrapped up in the end in a pretty bow, so to speak. Ari and Dante’s journey together is raw, open, and at times painful, but is realistic, both in the beautiful things and the ugly realities of life. Whether it is dealing with prejudices, self-discovery, or the various forms of unconditional love, Saenz creates a gripping plot that draws in its readers, and presents an opportunity for them to look in themselves about self- discovery and their own identity. 

ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE, while set in a different era, is acknowledged as a contemporary story set in a recent past. While the setting is not always described in detail, the main location of Ari and Dante’s stories, described from Ari’s first-person perspective, is the desert outside their home in El Paso, where they can see the stars without the light pollution of the city. While he does not go into much detail of the atmosphere itself, Ari describes more clearly about feelings about being outside in the open and feeling free in the bed of his red pickup truck. Ari and Dante’s individual stories transcend time and place and could take place anytime and anywhere in the present, modern day world. While the reader’s personal self-discovery may not look exactly like Ari or Dante’s, the lessons and themes in their stories can speak truth to teens and readers in any given circumstance. 

Saenz’s story explores the themes of race, sexuality, identity, the different forms of love, the struggles of fitting the mold of what a teenager should be like, and bearing the load of others' expectations concerning your life, and Saenz’s way of introducing these feelings of coming to terms with oneself are extremely powerful and moving. One of the situations where Ari is trying to make sense of the chaos of his feelings and struggles, as well as trying to understand why his brother he barely knew is in prison, he says: 

“But the worst part of that was those words were living inside me. They were leaking out of me. Words were not things you could control. Not always. I didn’t know what was happening to me. Everything was chaos and I was scared. I felt like Dante’s room before he’d put everything back in order. Order. That is what I needed. So I took out my journal and started writing…”

These themes are essential steps for Ari in understanding himself, and learning how to cope with the uncertainties of life, as well as his own feelings of growing up. Any young adult reader may be experiencing similar feelings.. 

Concerning the style of the novel, the dialogue happens naturally and is believable to readers. Through the weaving of  lyrical and well-crafted dialogue, there is a balance of Ari’s first person internal narration of the events that unfolds, and his outward dialogues with Dante, his family, and classmates. The tone and mood of the novel is deep, introspective, and truthful, helping the readers not only understand Ari’s struggles and joys, and his search for the meaning of life,  but also possibly causing them to take an internal look on their own lives, beliefs, and identity. 

Saenz’ s story also focuses on gender and culture, through the eyes of two teenage boys. The Latino culture comes into play in the story. It does not overload the story with details, but accentuates it and provides the reader with accurate information and cultural themes. One of the main topics with which Dante and Ari are at odds is the meaning of being Latino, and what the culture’s expectations are for Latino men, and the positives and negatives the boys see about being Hispanic.

 Throughout the novel, Dante makes remarks that display aversion towards being Latino, whether that is his skin color, his accent, his ability to speak Spanish, or even how he presents himself to his family and to others as Mexican. Later on, the readers are able to make the connection between Dante’s aversion to being Mexican and to his being homosexual, and the stereotypes that follow being a homosexual man. Ari notices that Dante is uncomfortable with the expectations his culture has about being a man, and that Dante worries about feeling weak and too emotional. 

Saenz also introduces readers to the different family dynamics between Ari and Dante’s families, and what it means to be loyal and loved by your family. Dante is an only child, while Ari is the youngest child with 3 siblings, all 12+ years older than him. Saenz writes of the struggles within Ari’s family, and the eventual healing that comes through the story: Ari’s dad’s time in Vietnam, and the pain and inability to speak of it; Ari’s mom’s sorrow over Bernando, Ari’s older brother who is in prison, and Ari’s sorrow of not knowing his brother, and his anger of his family refusing to speak of  Bernando and “erase” him from their lives. Through this one example, Saenz presents real and lifelike people, with very real and hard problems they are living with and healing through. 

4. REVIEW EXCERPTS 

School Library Journal:
In the summer of 1987 in El Paso, TX, two 15-year-old loners meet when Dante offers to teach Ari to swim, and they have a laugh over their unusual names. Though polar opposites in most aspects other than age and Mexican heritage, the teens form an instant bond and become inseparable. This poetic novel takes Ari, brooding and quiet, and with a brother in prison, and Dante, open and intellectual, through a year and a half of change, discovering secrets, and crossing borders from which there is no return…

Kirkus:
A boring summer stretches ahead of Ari, who at 15 feels hemmed in by a life filled with rules and family secrets. He doesn't know why his older brother is in prison, since his parents and adult sisters refuse to talk about it. His father also keeps his experience in Vietnam locked up inside. On a whim, Ari heads to the town swimming pool, where a boy he's never met offers to teach him to swim. Ari, a loner who's good in a fight, is caught off guard by the self-assured, artistic Dante. The two develop an easy friendship­, ribbing each other about who is more Mexican, discussing life's big questions, and wondering when they'll be old enough to take on the world…

5. CONNECTIONS 

Did you enjoy ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE ? Read book 2 to finish the Aristotle and Dante duology !

Book 2: ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DIVE INTO THE WATERS OF THE WORLD, ISBN: 9781534496194

Awards for ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE: 

• 2013 Stonewall Book Award

• 2013 Printz Honor 

• 2013 Pura Belpre Author Award 

• 2013 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Top Ten

Similar  LGBTQIA+ Young Adult Realistic Fiction:

• Albertalli, Becki. WHAT IF IT'S US. ISBN: 9780062795250

• Khorram, Adib. DARIUS THE GREAT IS NOT OKAY. ISBN:9781432866990

• Silvera, Adam. THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END. ISBN: 9780063278547

• FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES FROM THE SUN. ISBN: 9781542027052

Public Library YA  Book Club Activities: 

• Discussion Questions in ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE: provided by publisher:
  https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Aristotle-and-Dante-Discover-the-Secrets-of-the-Universe/Benjamin-Alire-Saenz/Aristotle-and-Dante/9781442408937#reading-group-guide
  
  

• DIY Painted Galaxy Notebook
  https://damasklove.com/diy-galaxy-painted-notebook/

Like Ari, teen book club members can have a cloth-bound journal to write and journal however they enjoy. They can decorate the covers with a favorite quote from the book if they wish. 

• Create soundtracks for Ari and Dante’s individual stories and journeys. Take note of their individual personalities, and the inner struggles they learn to heal from.
  
  

• Using the DIY Notebook, create a mood board page of images and words that you think represents the novel, and are important aspects of the story if you were to introduce and persuade a friend to read the book. Like a scrapbook, paste the pictures and words inside the notebook itself, and use a variety of mediums to create the board of themes you found powerful in the novel.